Main menu

Monthly Archives: February 2013

Post navigation

Tonight marks another low blood sugar in the grocery store night…. went in for some chili powder and walked out with the loss of my dignity.

Background: Worked out tonight without my Continuous Glucose Monitor of which could have warned me of a low blood sugar and to top that I did not use a “temp basal rate” on my pump before or during workout, which would have decreased my insulin rates as I worked out and thereby kept me normaler. “Normaler”….it’s not an actual word, but it should be.

Purchases:

1. Jell-o Pudding – this sounded delicious at the time…too bad I did not think to purchase milk to make it.

2. Lime flavored Jell-o. I’ve said it before, but I don’t like Jello. The only time it appeals to me is if it is in the form of an alcoholic shot or I have a low blood sugar.

3. Trash bags – I actually needed these and there was a coupon on the box.

4. The movie “Just Go With It” – I just watched this and definitely did not need to buy it. Who buys DVD’s these days when you can just buy and download instantly through the internet? That’s right. I’m down with the 21st century, yo.

8. Grape Jelly – already have a full jar of this in the fridge that I barely use.

9. A kit-kat – Ate this in the car before driving home.

10. A suduko book – I don’t even know..guess I wanted to improve my brain a little.

11. Crayola Crayons (or as I say “crowns”) and a Minnie and Mickey coloring book.

12. A 1000 piece puzzle of a castle…I think I reverted to a 10 year old child…

13. Oreos – it should be noted that I already had bought Oreos earlier today…of which will be taken to my co-workers tomorrow by the demand of a good friend who knows I don’t want that stuff in my house no mo. Thank you, friend.

14. Diet Dr. Pepper – Oh, I curse the carbonated deliciousness of this drink. I’m trying to not buy soda for my house and only drink water when inside these beautiful walls.

15. Crush Orange Single Serving Drink Mixes – similar to the Crystal Light packets you put in a bottle of water. I don’t know what to think about this….will it just be an orange flavor? Will it some how turn my water into a carbonated orange drink? I’ll find out tomorrow.

And best of all when I went to check-out I got distracted by the candy in front of me and handed the cashier my phone instead of my coupon for the trash bags. He gave me a strange look like I was a weirdo so I gave him a look like “What’s you problem, man?” He just handed me my phone back and I put my head down in shame.

Thankfully, I went back to the store later and was allowed to return the movie, coloring book, puzzle, jelly, and oreos (I still have my first package for work tomorrow..minus 3 cookies…ok, ok. 4!). I don’t think they are technically suppose to allow the return of food items…but oh well…works for me!

And…Yes…. I did not even get what I went in there to buy in the first place. Chili powder. Luckily I located a pack in my cupboard. If I had known this, this whole event could have been avoided.

It’s 2 am on a cold blustery night. I’m snug as a bug in a rug with my down comforter tucked up to my chin, my 6 pillows lying in wait around me ready to cushion my head in whichever way I decide to sleep and all this on top of my pillow-top bed that’s basically the best thing ever. Life is good. Dreaming the dreams, keeping it real. Don’t have to wake up for work for another 5 hours. Woot woot. Pure bliss. Oh but wait…something is insistently beeping. What is that? I try to ignore it, but it is gradually getting louder and louder until I can’t take it anymore. (Insert cuss words of reader’s choice)

What could possibly be so annoying as to wake me from my precious, blissful sleep, you wonder? The continuous glucose monitor (CGM). A loud, annoying, wonderful invention that makes me want to both leap for joy and stab someone at the same time. Stab? That’s kind of extreme….maybe I’ll change that to punch a wall. Yeah, less violence… Punch a wall. Hard. Then stab it. Whoah whoah… deep breaths. I’m good now. Lightly tap the wall in just a slight bit of anger and that’s it. No stabbing.

For those of you who don’t know a CGM is something that you pray your insurance covers (because it is exxpppppeeeennnnssssiiiivvveeee) and it attaches to your body sort of like the insulin pump without the “beeper” portion. It then tests your fluids (some sort of fluids that is right under the skin) and tells you your glucose levels every 5 minutes and wirelessly tells your pump what’s happening. That’s a pretty unintelligent and generic answer…look it up if you want more info. There are different kinds that work different ways and I am only talking about my mini med CGM.

I’ve written about the CGM before, but it was mostly me complaining about not getting it to work right. I wanted to write one that was more legit. Too legit, too legit to quit. Hammer time.

Cons:

The alarms – They go off constantly. People probably think I have some sort of bomb attached to me. The alarm will go off when your going high, going low, losing signal, need to check your blood sugar for calibration. Some days it feels like it is beeping at me every 3 seconds. I tend to ignore alarms and then they just keep going off, so part of this con is operator error. The worst is at night though as I have explained above. I love sleep. I hate anything that interrupts it. I’ll stab it.

The beeper – I’ve mentioned this in my pump cons before. People think I have a beeper. Really? It’s 2013…you know me, I’m not a doctor. I do accounting…

”Oh, the taxes are due?”

“Hurry up! Page Emily on her beeper! Stat!”

Use some sense people. Do beepers come with tubes attached that disappear under a persons clothes? I mean seriously.…..whoah…I’m not annoyed by it or anything….clearly…haha. The point of this rant is that because the CGM is constantly feeding my pump information about what kind of shenanigans my blood levels are up to, I am constantly looking at my pump in fascination checking my levels and making it more noticeable to people than the times before I had the CGM when I only had to look at my pump when I ate and needed to bolus or correct a high. In the past month I have had 5 people ask me if I had a beeper….that’s quite an increase from the once or twice a year I used to get the question.

Pros:

Awesomeness – There is a sense of calm and control when you know your blood sugar is dropping or raising and you can correct accordingly.

Graphs – You can see a graph of your blood sugars over a 3 hour, 6 hour, 12 hour and 24 hour period. I just think it’s cool to look at.

Drinking –I know that Type 1’s shouldn’t drink alcohol, but seriously, it’s going to happen. Alcohol (at least with me) can take your blood sugar high and then drop it real fast. If you are a little tipsy (ever’body in the club gettin’ tipsy) it is nice to have the CGM and actually see when your levels start to drop. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t gotten low yet, but I could see it was dropping so I ate a few crackers and all was good. Crisis averted.

Exercise – Same as drinking….you can see when your levels are dropping. In the past high intensity work outs were scary to me because I was afraid of what my glucose levels would do, but the CGM gives me more comfort and confidence to get the job done and not worry about what my blood sugar is doing. Booyah.

Welp, that’s all I got for now. I have songs stuck in my head that are driving me mad and preventing me from thinking clearly. Good day. I said good day!